Serbis - Movie Reviews | Rotten Tomatoes

Serbis Reviews

Georgan G

Aug 18, 2023

This film seemed more like a documentary than a drama. Getting to see all the members of this big family negotiate their problems was interesting enough. With all the nudity & soft porn it was downright entertaining.

May 11, 2016

story of a family trying to run a restaurant & porno theater ironically called family theater

Jul 21, 2013

the movie paints a good enough picture of the character and the desperate situations they are in, but then what? the plot (or lack thereof) doesnt move any of these characters forward. someone please give the director a crash course on what a story arc is.

Nov 3, 2012

Brilliant movie, showing the hectic life of a disintegrating family in the town of Angeles in The Philippines. They are running a cinema showing soft-porn movies, which is only an excuse for providing the local prostitutes and thiefes and other ungraceful professions with a place to meet their clientele. Obviously, no family can live in that environment without being adversely effected by it. Despite all that madness and repeating pattern of failures generations after generations, I think there was a somewhat positive ending, a dim chance of a better future, of a united family. The camerawork and the storytelling is amazing. Most of the scenes take place within the walls of the decrepit movie theatre but the boundaries between professional and personal events, street life and private life, day and night are rather blurred. Sometimes claustrophobic, sometimes disgusting, sometimes graphic, but this is Philippine or World cinema at its best.

Jul 28, 2012

This is going to be a modern classic...black comedy and the works...

Jun 26, 2012

An artistically filthy movie, engaging to the other side of Filipino culture... Truly perfect in the way the actors deliver their characters and the atmosphere of the film is just classic and enduring...

Jun 4, 2012

Of course, it's cinematography it something different than expected. A good example of a movie with sex and social problems.

Feb 27, 2012

Mendoza's brave directing style materialized as the film succeeds to showcase the dark images of life.

Jan 24, 2012

What a movie! I was surprised to know this kind of movie exist!! I find it quite hard to accept the reality the world I'm living in right now.. May God help us all..

Nov 8, 2011

Jun 29, 2011

What screams family business more than a 2nd run porn theater? Not much in my book. A family goes about their daily routines in their theater while waiting on the verdict from the matriarch's bigamy charges against her husband. Gay hustlers come and go, small squabbles are dredged up among family members and then ignored, it's all just a strange slice of life that gives a peek into a world that I personally never knew existed. Interesting is the most descriptive word I can think of, but not mind-blowing. Rental?

Apr 23, 2011

I watched this director's movie Summer Heat, and when I knew he was starting to get accolades for this movie, I looked into Summer Heat. And it wasn't bad. It had a good sense of situational storytelling and gave me a nice feel for the area around where my wife is from. It was really stuck on the vertical rise crane shot and was a bit heavy on some melodrama, but it showed potential. Well, Serbis is a sideways step. First off, this is really where my wife is from, meaning the city itself. And this movie captures the chaos and sheer noise and crowd of it all. Secondly, there is certainly a greater artistic reach in this movie in terms of photography and framing. There isn't the same fixation on certain shots and angles and it actually seems like it was thought out a bit. For this part, this is a good movie. The meandering camera through the giant Theater is a superb. For the bad, it really takes a step back in storytelling. There isn't much progression in anyone in the movie. I know it's a day in the life, but the key divorce part or the strong sister don't really get far. It really gets bogged down in the basic blatant sex. And there were too many characters. None really absorbs. I don't know if that was the point of the large cast, but for me it never worked. Maybe there will be better from Mendoza sometime later, but I heard the last Cannes film was crap.

Super Reviewer

Dec 13, 2010

I have to say that Brillante Mendoza's "Serbis" is slightly better than his more renowned(and at the same time, denounced) "Kinatay". In some ways, "Serbis'" cinematography, acting, and subplots were the collective product of what could be Brillante's personal vision of Philippine society and familial relations that has been distributed rationally to his other earlier films: "Tirador's" biting humor, "Kaleldo's" character interactions and mild sepia cinematography, the escalating darkness that his later film "Kinatay" has embarked on, and even "Masahista's" literal sexuality. The ensemble cast was also very impressive in their uncanny degree of suppressing any screen inhibitions, be it about showing their skin, or acting as a credible, functioning family while immersing themselves into the decaying backdrop of a filthy 'bold' theater. It was almost unbelievable for the whole cast to pull off such a film without going as far as the extremities Nagisa Oshima has reached and the cost of what cinematic taboo he had broken to show a sociopolitical allegory. Brillante Mendoza has also able to incorporate his usual fascination of religious traditions; imageries that might have been inserted just for the sake of it, or can also be visual antidotes to the sinful displays on his films. Notable performances were by Gina Pareno as the theater-inhabiting family's matriarch, and Julio Diaz as the awkwardly unknowing husband of Layda(played by Jaclyn Jose). It's just refreshing to see a film that has brought a pitiful place such as a decaying 'bomba' moviehouse into cinematic life(a place whose only common attribution is to "Imbestigador"), put it in the center of a neorealist drama, and let it's pathetic and dissident inhabitants dwell on the establishment's sleazy imperfections; an uncanny likeness to their own lives indeed.

Dec 9, 2010

Dark Mileu Study of a Gay Porno Cinema in Angeles City what a Rotten Society this delivers Stuff for a whole Periode of Great Cinema full of Tragic & Dark Comedy

Sep 6, 2010

If you are not deeply committed to independent cinema or perhaps deeply into Asian pornography you won't like this film, but if you are... then I say give it a try. Serbis -- a Filipino film with subtitles -- tells the story of a three-generation family living in and running a rundown former family movie theater that now runs soft-core porn and caters to a largely homosexual and illicit crowd. The dark movie house is filled with prostitutes, johns and who knows what else. It is all very unseemly in a movie theater that is just as disgusting as the things that go on there. Throughout the theater there are signs that read No pissing here. It is fairly likely that wads of cum are as essential as mortar in holding the rather large and decrepit theater together. We follow the family as they struggle to survive together and cope with the utterly un-family friendly confines that they are housed. The setting puts everyone's sexual desires and perversions on display for everyone else and especially the viewer. The director spends a lot of the movie following his characters walking up and down the numerous stairways in the winding and expansive theater as if they are walking through a macabre maze. But no one seems to be getting out and the dead-ends lead to desperation, resignation and exploitation. The whole thing is carnal, sad and darkly humorous. That last bit is important to note because it may not be altogether clear that this movie tries to be funny. It is easy to lose the humor while reading the subtitles. If you approach this movie as if it were some kind of odd and disturbing telenovela, you are likely to have a better viewing and maybe even revel in some of the quirky melodrama. Still, for many, this movie is painfully slow and perhaps unwatchable. I can understand that. There are many flaws. The sound editing is substandard in several patches; the camera work struggles mightily in some stretches, although it is competent in others places; and the dialogue is a little banal. There is also an uneven -- or maybe just confusing -- tone to Serbis. I mentioned that you can get some delight out of the melodrama, but it is not hard to get thrown for a loop by what seems to be fits of earnestness. There are moments that make you feel like Serbis is too serious to get away with some of its comical gags, yet there are also moments that make you feel like it is too ridiculous to be taken seriously. These shifts not only confuse the viewer but make one incredulous about the director's intentions. Is it okay to laugh or should I feel bad that it made me laugh? How should I feel about being titillated by the non-simulated sex scenes? Is this film nothing more than a gritty porno about pornography? Does the director want me to be conflicted? If this film wasn't worth anything I wouldn't be asking those questions, and if it was better crafted I might know some of the answers. The bottom line is that this venture demands some thought and an opinion -- good or bad -- and that is more than I can say about a lot of things that flicker on the screen. -Craig from the InstaFlicka Podcast Team ----- The InstaFlicka Podcast Doing our part to help you by watching the NetFlix Instant Queue until our eyes bleed http://instaflicka.squarespace.com/

Jul 27, 2010

Fearless. Upsetting. Perfect ending.

May 28, 2010

As bad as humanly possible...subtitles through the entire thing and hardly any "fun" scenes...

May 24, 2010

very interesting film.

Mar 27, 2010

This was a stupid ass movie! The only reason why I decided to watch it was because it was a Filipino movie with English subtitles. The movie had no story and all the actors did was go up and down the damn stairs of the porno movie house. This is supposed to be a rated R movie, but it was more like rated X. They actually showed penetration and straight up orals - mostly gay oral. The ending was stupid. It just made me remember how life really is in the Philippines, as far the street scenes.

Mar 26, 2010

Interesting family story and setting, but there was a definite lack of direction and conclusion. Half of the film consisted of a camera following behind a walking person, and the other half involved far too much 'reading between the lines' to decipher its presumed meanings.

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